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The episode depicts an encounter between the Doctor's fifth and tenth
incarnations, played by Davison and Tennant respectively. "Time Crash"
was a ratings success, with a viewership of 10.9 million and a 45%
share of the total television audience that night, making it both the
most watched portion of the 2007 Children in Need special and the most
watched Doctor Who episode since the show's 2005 revival.[2]

Plot

After saying farewell to Martha, the Doctor sets off on his travels when the TARDIS
encounters a problem, the result of which involves the Fifth Doctor
appearing in the console room. The Tenth Doctor is gleeful at the
meeting, but the Fifth Doctor is initially baffled, assuming his future
incarnation is a deranged fan, possibly from LINDA.

The Tenth Doctor explains that he forgot to put up the shields after
rebuilding the TARDIS and it collided with the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS
(its earlier self) in the timestream. This is generating a paradox at
the heart of the ship powerful enough to rip a hole in the universe the
(exact) size of Belgium. The Cloister Bell signals the impending end.

However, without a thought, the Tenth Doctor manipulates the TARDIS controls to manipulate a supernova into exact counterbalance; it cancels out the black hole
caused by the paradox, so that all matter remains constant. This amazes
the Fifth Doctor, but he quickly realises that the Tenth Doctor 'came
up with' the solution only because he remembered this encounter.
The Fifth Doctor says his farewells, and the Tenth Doctor tells the
Fifth of the personality traits that he retained from his fifth self,
also telling him he loved being him and that he was "his" Doctor.

As he departs, the Fifth Doctor reminds the Tenth to raise his shields again, but too late; as he is doing so, the hull of the RMS Titanic crashes through one of the TARDIS walls, as originally seen at the end of the last series.

Cast notes

At 56 on the date of filming, Davison — still the current record
holder for the youngest actor to play the Doctor — was older than William Hartnell was when he began his run as the First Doctor
- at 55 the oldest anyone has been when they first played the Doctor.
From an in-character point of view, the aged appearance of the Fifth
Doctor was explained away as an effect of the merge.

Continuity

Both the Fifth Doctor and the Tenth Doctor make references to each
other's respective storylines throughout the episode. The Tenth Doctor
mentions Nyssa and Tegan, the Mara, Time Lordswearing silly hats, as well as commenting at length on the Fifth Doctor's clothing. The Fifth Doctor asks the Tenth Doctor if he's connected with LINDA and uses the phrase "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" first heard in "Blink", also by Steven Moffat. Other elements from the series such as Zeiton crystals, the helmic regulator and the thermobuffer are also mentioned.

Both Doctors refer to common elements throughout the series such as the Cybermen and the Master. The Fifth asks if the Master still has "that rubbish beard" (referencing the fact that actors Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley portrayed the character with a beard), and the Tenth replies "No, no beard this time... well, a wife" (referring to Lucy Saxon). The Fifth Doctor also notes that the TARDIS's "desktop theme" has been changed, accounting for its radically different appearances throughout the series.

The Tenth Doctor offers to help the Fifth Doctor fix the problem caused by the TARDIS merge through his sonic screwdriver, which the Fifth Doctor declines. The latter's own sonic screwdriver was destroyed in the serial The Visitation, as then-producer John Nathan-Turner
saw it as an "easy way out" for writers to resolve any difficult
situation the Doctor faced. The sonic screwdriver would never appear in
the show again until the TV movie in 1996.

There were also several instances of the incidental music changing
to a style more heavily favoured during the time that Peter Davison's
episodes were produced. This differed greatly from the orchestral style
of music now favoured by the programme.

Chronology

It is never explicitly stated where the Fifth Doctor's segment fits
into his own continuity. From the Tenth Doctor's perspective, the
special takes place at the very end of "Last of the Time Lords",
immediately prior to the RMS Titanic crashing into the TARDIS.

According to the Doctor Who Confidential
episode featuring behind-the-scenes footage, the Fifth Doctor's coat
and trousers are originals taken from the Blackpool Doctor Who
exhibition. The trousers had been previously altered in order to fit Colin Baker for the regeneration scene in The Caves of Androzani (and the opening of The Twin Dilemma). The jumper was knitted especially for this episode, and the hat was a new roll-up panama hat with an original band added on.

David Tennant mentioned in an interview the morning after airing
that the Tenth Doctor's speech complimenting the Fifth Doctor's sense
of style and personality was written by himself, and that the Fifth was
his favourite Doctor.[citation needed]

Previous Doctor Who charity specials transmitted over the years include the aforementioned Dimensions in Time, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death and "Doctor Who: Children in Need". The first two are generally not regarded as canonical by Doctor Who fans, but the last one is, directly connecting "The Parting of the Ways" with "The Christmas Invasion". The anniversary special The Five Doctors was broadcast on Children in Need night for its United Kingdom premier broadcast.[4]

Broadcast, reception and release

Children in Need was the most-watched television programme of
the night, with an overnight rating of 9.4 million viewers, and figures
peaked between 8:15pm and 8:30pm, when "Time Crash" was aired, with a
total of 10.9 million viewers. The episode is therefore the most-viewed
since the show's revival in 2005, surpassing the revival's premiere, "Rose", which achieved a rating of 10.8 million viewers.[2] Calls also peaked during the episode's airing.[5] When the episode was replayed later that night it garnered an audience of 2.5 million viewers.[6]

Critical reaction was positive, with reviewers calling it the highlight of the Children in Need special.[7][8] Steven Moffat was praised for his writing of the episode, which was characterized as witty and clever.[7][9] The performances of both Peter Davison and David Tennant were also well-received.[10][8]

Verity Lambert - 1935 - 2007

Original Doctor Who producer passes away.

It's with great sadness that we have to announce the first producer of Doctor Who, Verity Lambert has passed away.

Verity Doctor Who when the series began in 1963.

During her career, she also produced dramas including The Newcomers, Adam Adamant Lives!, Minder and Quatermass.

In 1985, Verity formed her own independent television company,
Cinema Verity. She produced the second series of Jonathan Creek and
recently completed the second series of BBC One's Love Soup.

In January 2002, Lambert was awarded an OBE in recognition of her
services to film and television. Shortly before she died she was given
the Working Title Films lifetime achievement award at the 2007 Women In
Film And Television Awards.

Russell T Davies, Lead Writer and Executive Producer of Doctor Who,
said: "There are a hundred people in Cardiff working on Doctor Who and
millions of viewers, in particular many children, who love the
programme that Verity helped create. This is her legacy and we will
never forget that."

Jon Plowman, Executive Producer, BBC Comedy, said: "Verity was a TV
giant. Her career spanned the eras, from first episodes of Doctor Who
and Minder through to Jonathan Creek and the forthcoming series of Love
Soup.

"She was extraordinary – very keen to get shows right and to
encourage people, as she did for me in my early days. She never held
back in her praise and was not jealous of anyone else's success – she
enjoyed watching people grow up around her."

Jane Tranter, Controller, BBC Fiction, said: "Verity was a total
one-off. She was a magnificently, madly, inspirationally talented drama
producer. During her long and brilliant career there was no form of
drama that was beyond her reach and that she didn't excel at. From the
early episodes of Doctor Who to the still to be transmitted comedy
drama Love Soup, via Widows, Minder, GBH, Eldorado and Jonathan Creek
(to name but the tiniest handful of credits) – Verity was a
phenomenon."

Today (Friday) is the 44th anniversary of her first ever episode of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who's first producer dies

Verity Lambert joined the BBC in 1963 as its youngest producer

Doctor Who's first producer, and the BBC's first female TV producer, Verity Lambert, has died aged 71.

She was also the youngest person to take charge of a BBC television show when the sci-fi drama started in 1963.

Lambert also produced dramas including Minder,
Quatermass, Rumpole of the Bailey and Jonathan Creek, while her company
made 1990s BBC soap Eldorado.

She was made an OBE in recognition of her services to film and television in January 2002.

'Total one-off'

Lambert oversaw the first two series of Doctor Who before leaving in 1965.

Russell T Davies, the current writer and executive
producer of Doctor Who, said: "There are a hundred people in Cardiff
working on Doctor Who and millions of viewers, in particular many
children, who love the programme that Verity helped create."

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

1963 - Doctor Who (pictured)

1975 - The Naked Civil Servant

1976 - Rock Follies

1983 - Widows

1986 - Clockwise

1991 - GBH

1991 - Sleepers

2001 - The Cazalets

"This is her legacy and we will never forget that," he added.

In 1985 Lambert formed her own independent television
company, Cinema Verity, which went on to make the sitcom May to
December and the short-lived soap Eldorado.

Most recently she completed the second series of BBC One's Love Soup.

Jane Tranter, controller of BBC Fiction said: "Verity
was a total one-off. She was a magnificently, madly, inspirationally
talented drama producer."

Lambert had been due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television Awards next month.

Her death comes the day before the 44th anniversary of the very first episode of Doctor Who.

Davros Awakes!

Destiny Of The Daleks and Davros Boxset for November.

Destiny of the Daleks, starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor
and Lalla Ward as a newly regenerated Romana, is set to be released on
DVD by 2Entertain.

When the Doctor and Romana arrive on Skaro, they find themselves
caught in the middle of in an interplanetary war between the Daleks and
the robotic Movellans. Can Davros, creator of the Daleks, give the
Doctor's greatest enemies the edge they need?

The single-disc (not double, as previously reported) contains all four episodes plus the following extras:

Coming Soon - trail for forthcoming DVD boxset release of Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep.

Easter Egg

Destiny Of The Daleks will be available from 26 November. The story
will also form part of a special Davros boxset, collecting all the
other adventures featuring the evil genius, plus extra material. More
on these extras soon!

Synopsis

The Ninth Doctor takes his new companion, Rose, on her first trip through time, 5 billion years into the future. There, on a space station called Platform One, he and Rose are on hand with a group of alien races to witness the Sun expand and swallow the Earth. However, someone is planning to sabotage the event with deadly robotic spiders.

Plot

"Welcome to the end of the world."

Following "Rose", the Doctor asks Rose where she would like to go on her first trip in the TARDIS, and she selects the future. The Doctor takes her to the year 5.5/Apple/26 (five billion years in her future) onto a space station named Platform One orbiting the Earth. In the eons since Rose's time, the Earth has emptied, mankind having left it long ago and the planet taken over by the National Trust. Although the expansion of the Sun
takes millions of years, gravity satellites held the effects back, and
the trust also restored the "classic" positions of the continents on
Earth. Now that the money has run out, the Earth will be allowed to be
swallowed up by the Sun at last. Platform One is where the extraterrestrial
rich of the universe will witness the end of the world, which will
occur in about an hour. The station has automated systems and is
staffed by blue-skinned humanoids.

On encountering the Steward, who manages Platform One, the Doctor
persuades him that he and Rose are invited guests by using a piece of "psychic paper" that makes people see what the Doctor wants them to see. The other guests arrive, including the diminutive Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe, living humanoidtrees from the Forest of Cheem (whose ancestors originated on Earth) and, from Financial Family Seven, a group called the Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Rose watches in fascination as the last living human arrives — the Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen,
who is just a piece of stretched-out skin with eyes and a mouth,
mounted on a frame and connected to a brain jar. The skin needs to be
constantly moisturised by her attendants. The guests exchange gifts:
Jabe of the Forest of Cheem gives the Doctor a cutting taken from her grandfather; the Doctor gives her the gift of air from his lungs. The Moxx gives the gift of bodily salivas, and the Adherents of the Repeated Meme hand out gifts of "peace" in the form of metalspheres, even to the Steward.

Cassandra gives her own gifts: the last ostrich egg, and an "iPod" (a Wurlitzerjukebox) from ancient Earth. Rose is a bit overwhelmed when the jukebox plays "classical" music — the song "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell — and leaves the hall. She has a brief conversation with a station plumber,
Raffalo, who is investigating a blockage. At first she is comforted by
the familiarity of Raffalo's matter-of-fact, working-class manner. But
when Raffalo explains that she is from Crespallion, which is part of
the Jaggit Brocade, affiliated to the Scarlet Junction, in Complex 56,
Rose realises how far she is from home, and with a man she does not
even know. Rose leaves, and does not see Raffalo spot some small, spider-like robots
in the ducts, which rapidly grab her and pull her inside. Meanwhile,
the spiders are being disgorged from the metal spheres gifted by the
Adherents of the Repeated Meme to the various guests, and soon
infiltrate the entire station, sabotaging its systems.

The Doctor finds Rose, and when Rose asks him where he is from, the
Doctor brushes her questions off, getting defensive and angry. When the
Doctor alters Rose's mobile phone
so she can talk to her mother in the past, another fact sinks in — her
mother is long dead. The Doctor jokes that if Rose thought the
telephone call was amazing, she should see the bill. Suddenly, a tremor
shakes the station, and the Doctor observes that it was not supposed to
happen. The Steward, investigating the cause of the tremor, is killed
when a spider lowers the sun filter in his room, exposing him to the
direct heat of the Sun's rays.

The Doctor also starts to look into the tremor, and Jabe offers to
show him where the maintenance corridors are while Rose goes to speak
to Cassandra. Rose finds that Cassandra has had 708 operations to keep
her alive, and considers herself the last "pure" human — the others who
left "intermingled" with other species and she considers them all
mongrels. Her 709th operation, to bleach her blood, is next week.
Disgusted that humanity has come to this, Rose insults Cassandra and
storms off, only to be met by the Adherents, who knock her out.

In the corridors, Jabe quietly tells the Doctor that she scanned him
earlier, and was astonished to discover what he was and that he still
even exists. She genuinely sympathises with him, putting a hand on his
arm, and the Doctor is briefly moved to tears. They then continue to
the bowels of the station, where they find one of the spiders. Jabe
captures it with a liana, a long, vine-like appendage which she usually keeps hidden out of courtesy.

As the station's systems continue to be sabotaged and, as a "traditional ballad" — Britney Spears's "Toxic"
— plays on the jukebox, Rose wakes to find herself trapped in a room
with a lowering sun filter. The Doctor hears her cries for help and
manages to raise the filter, but Rose is still locked in. Returning to
the main hall, the Doctor releases the spider to seek out its master.
At first it focuses on the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, but the
Doctor points out that repeated memes are just ideas, and the Adherents
are remote-controlled droids. He deactivates them and the spider scurries over to Cassandra.

Cassandra has her attendants hold the others at bay, saying that the
moisturiser guns can also shoot acid. She reveals that her operations
cost a fortune, and she was hoping to create a hostage situation
whereby she could later seek compensation. Now she will just let
everyone burn and take over their corporate holdings. Cassandra orders
the spiders to shut off the force field protecting the station, then
uses an illegal teleportation device to transport herself and her attendants away.

With only a few minutes left until the Sun incinerates Earth and the
station, the Doctor and Jabe rush back down to the air-conditioning
chamber. The restore switch for the computer systems is at the other
end of a platform blocked by giant rotating fans. The Doctor protests
that the rising heat will burn the wooden Jabe, but she insists on
staying to hold down the switch that slows the fans. The Doctor makes
it nearly to the end before Jabe catches fire and burns. He closes his
eyes and concentrates, making it past the last fan and throwing the
reset switch. The force fields come up around the station just in time,
as the Earth explodes into cinders. The station's systems start to
self-repair.

However, several of the guests are now dead (including the Moxx but
not the Face of Boe), burned alive as the Sun's rays burst through
cracks in the windows. The Doctor is furious, and after finding
Cassandra's teleportation feed inside the ostrich egg, reverses it to
bring her back. She quickly regains her poise and starts taunting the
Doctor, saying that he cannot do anything about her. However, the
Doctor calmly notes that he has transported Cassandra back without her
moisturising attendants. In the raised temperature, she begins to dry
out. Cassandra begs for mercy and Rose asks the Doctor to help her, but
the Doctor coldly says that every thing has its time, and every thing
dies. Cassandra's skin stretches and tears, her innards exploding and
leaving only her brain tank and empty frame.

Rose is sad that in all the danger, the Earth's passing was not
actually witnessed by anyone. The Doctor takes her back to the present
in the TARDIS, telling her that people think things will last forever,
but they don't. He reveals to her that his home planet was burned like Earth, but in a war,
and that he is the last survivor of the Time Lords. Rose says that he
still has her, and he smiles as she offers to buy him some chips — they
only have five billion years before the shops close.

Cast notes

Cassandra is a CGI
creation voiced by actress Zoë Wanamaker. Writer Russell T. Davies
revealed that Cassandra was inspired by the appearance of various
female celebrities at the Oscars. He said, "It was horrific seeing those beautiful women reduced to sticks. Nicole Kidman struck me in particular." Wanamaker reprised the role of Cassandra in the 2006 series' first episode, "New Earth."[1] See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.

Continuity

The new TARDIS console has a rather thrown-together appearance and
includes the use of a bicycle-pump like mechanism, identified as a
"vortex loop" in "Attack of the Graske" (2005).[2] Some earlier serials have stated that the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey is the power source for the TARDIS. If it were destroyed along with Gallifrey, this may imply a certain amount of bodging was done to overcome the problem.

The Doctor explains that the TARDIS's telepathic field is what gives Rose the ability to understand and be understood by the aliens. This concept was first introduced in the Fourth Doctor serial The Masque of Mandragora (1976), described by the Doctor as a "Time Lord gift" he shares with his companions.

The other guests attending Platform One, as announced by the
Steward, include the brothers Hop Pyleen, inventors and copyright
holders of hyposlip travel systems from the exalted clifftops of Rex
Vox Jax; the cybernetic hyperstar Cal "Sparkplug" MacNannovich (plus
guest); the avian
Mr and Mrs Pakoo; the chosen scholars of Class Fifty-five of the
University of Rago Rago Five Six Rago; and the Ambassadors from the
City State of Binding Light (oxygen levels must be monitored strictly at all times in the Ambassadors' presence).[8]

In conversation with the Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe mentions the "Bad Wolf scenario." On the BBC's Bad Wolf website, it was listed as "the classic bad wolf scenario".[9] (The subtitles of the DVD
release give the phrase as "bad-move scenario", but this is probably an
error.) The phrase "Bad Wolf" is a recurring theme in the 2005 series.

The Steward informs the Doctor that teleportation is banned under
"Peace Treaty 5.4/Cup/15" (presumably the name of the treaty followed
by the year it was enacted). How exactly this dating system works is
never explained.

The Doctor tells Jabe that he was once on another "unsinkable" ship
and wound up clinging to an iceberg, an apparent reference to having
been on the RMS Titanic when she sank. Which incarnation of the Doctor did this is not specified, although the Seventh Doctor was on board the Titanic in the Virgin New Adventures novel The Left-Handed Hummingbird by Kate Orman (which is of uncertain canonicity).[10] He did not, however, wind up on an iceberg in that story. In the Fourth Doctor story The Invasion of Time (1978),[11] the Doctor claims that he "wasn't responsible" for the disaster. In "Rose", Clive, a conspiracy theorist,
shows Rose a photograph of the Ninth Doctor with "the Daniels family of
Southampton", on the eve of their scheduled voyage on the Titanic. For an unspecified reason, they canceled their trip and survived.[12] At the end of "Last of the Time Lords" the Tenth Doctor and the TARDIS are hit by the bow of the Titanic, which smashes through the TARDIS's walls.

The Doctor pilots the TARDIS to two time periods before its
eventual arrival five billion years in the future: the year 2105, which
he claims is slightly boring, and the year 12005, which he calls the
New Roman Empire. The Doctor previously visited the 22nd century in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

This episode is the first episode to appear in the year five billion timeline.

The Face of Boe is revealed to be from the Silver Devastation, which is where Professor Yana reveals he is "from" in the episode "Utopia".

Production

According to the DVD commentary, many of the Platform One interiors were filmed at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff, Wales. Sets were also built and painted to match the Temple's marble interiors.

In the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, Russell T. Davies joked that that there would never be such an expensive episode again (because of the large amount of CGI
special effects). Both Cassandra and the robotic spiders — other than
an inactive one — are completely CGI generated creatures. The
documentary also reveals that there are 203 visual effects shots in
this episode, compared to "about 100" in the film Gladiator.[13]

Jabe's scan of the Doctor displays an animation by Drew Berry of translation, a process wherein a protein molecule is synthesised according to the genetic code carried by messenger RNA. A production sketch of the scanner drawn by Matthew Savage shows a scan of the Doctor indicating nine different DNA samples — one for each incarnation.[14]

Broadcast

This episode begins with a cold open,
which from here on became a standard feature. This is a first for the
series, which previously used pre-credits teaser sequences sparingly in
special episodes such as the post-regenerationCastrovalva (1982); the 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors (1983); and the 25th anniversary story, Remembrance of the Daleks (1988).

According to a March 2006 interview with Russell T Davies, he
requested for this episode to be broadcast back-to-back with "Rose",
but the request was given to the BBC too close to transmission.[15] However, the American Sci-Fi Channel did run the two episodes consecutively.

Rose Tyler is a shop assistant at Henrik's, a department store in present-day London. One evening, she is about to go home when the security guard passes her a packet containing lottery
money, presumably to be given to whoever runs the staff syndicate. Rose
goes to the basement to find Wilson, the chief electrician, but he is
nowhere to be found. She hears a noise and goes to see what it is,
entering a room filled with plastic
store dummies. The door slams shut, locking her in, and the mannequins
come to life, backing her into a corner. Before the lead one can strike
her, someone grabs Rose's hand: a tall, strange-looking man in a
leather jacket and crew cut, who tells her to run.

Rose and the stranger burst through another set of doors and race
down the corridors of the basement, pursued by the dummies. They reach
the lifts,
and a mannequin's arm lunges through the closing doors. The stranger
grapples with the arm, and with a jerk, yanks it off. The doors shut,
and the stranger tosses the now lifeless plastic arm to Rose. She still
believes that it is some kind of student prank, but the stranger shakes
his head. They are living plastic, and Wilson is dead.

Reaching the ground level, the stranger disables the lift buttons
with a pen-like device that projects a high-pitched whine. The stranger
explains the plastic creatures are being controlled by a relay on the
roof, and he is going to destroy it with an explosive device. He ushers
Rose out and before he goes back into the building, he introduces
himself as the Doctor.
He asks for her name, and she tells him it is Rose. "Nice to meet you,
Rose," the Doctor says, adding, "Run for your life!" Rose reaches the
other side of the street, still holding onto the arm, and looks up at
the Henrik's building as the top floors and roof explode. She runs off
in the confusion, not noticing an anachronisticpolice box standing off to the side.

Later, Rose watches the report of the fire on television at her council flat, her mother Jackie telling friends on the telephone about her daughter's narrow escape. Rose's boyfriend Mickey
arrives, expressing concern, but she tells him she is fine. Rose asks
him to dispose of the plastic arm, which Mickey tosses in a rubbish bin
at the foot of Rose's block of flats when he leaves.

The next morning, Jackie suggests Rose take a new job or ask for
compensation. Rose hears someone at the door, and peeks through the cat flap
to see the Doctor's face. The Doctor seems as startled to see her — he
appears to have gotten the wrong signal. Rose drags him in, wanting
answers so she can tell the police. Jackie is fascinated by the new
arrival and tries, awkwardly, to seduce him. The Doctor simply says
"No," and steps away, to Jackie's irritation.

Rose fixes coffee while the Doctor waits in the living room, peering
at his own reflection in the mirror as if for the first time and
looking at everything. The Doctor hears a scuttling behind Rose's sofa,
and when he looks, the plastic arm which has somehow returned leaps up
to strangle him. Rose thinks the Doctor is just play acting with the
arm until it attacks her. Jackie, drying her hair in the other room,
hears nothing as the Doctor and Rose crash around with the arm.
Managing to pull it away from Rose, the Doctor uses the same pen-like
device — his sonic screwdriver — to shut it down.

Rose follows the Doctor as he leaves. The Doctor tells her that the
plastic arm was fixed on him as a target and only attacked Rose because
she got in the way. It was controlled by something that projected life
into the arm by thought, and he simply cut off the signal. Their
purpose is to destroy the human race. Rose does not believe him, but
the Doctor notes that she's still listening.

She asks the Doctor once again who he is as he walks towards a
police box. The Doctor tells her that it's like when you are a child
and are first told the world revolves. You cannot quite believe it
because everything looks like it is standing still. He takes her hand,
telling her that he can feel it, the Earth turning, the world itself spinning around the Sun,
everyone falling through space and clinging to the surface of this tiny
planet, and if they let go... That's who he is. The Doctor tells Rose
to forget him and go home. She walks away but when she hears a strange,
grating sound and runs back, the Doctor and the police box have
disappeared.

Rose goes to Mickey's flat and uses his computer to search the
Internet for information about the Doctor. She finds a website, "Who is
Doctor Who?", which features a picture of the Doctor together with an
appeal for anyone who has seen him to contact the site's maintainer, a
man called Clive. Rose goes to see Clive at his house in suburban
London while Mickey waits, suspicious, in the car outside.

In his study, Clive tells Rose that the name of the Doctor keeps cropping up through the years in diaries, journals and conspiracy theories.
No names, just the Doctor, perhaps a title that is passed along from
father to son. He shows her photographs that show the Doctor in the
crowd at the Kennedy assassination, at Southampton on the eve of the Titanic's sailing, and in a drawing from 1883 that was washed up on the coast of Sumatra after the eruption of Krakatoa. Clive explains that the Doctor is a name woven throughout history, bringing storms in his wake, death his constant companion.

As Mickey waits impatiently outside, he goes to investigate a
plastic rubbish bin that he saw moving on its own, but it is empty. As
he tries to return to the car, he finds his hands stuck to the lid, the
plastic stretching but not letting him go. He is yanked into the bin,
which shuts with a loud belch.

Clive warns Rose that they are all in danger. He believes that these
pictures all portray the same man, and that the Doctor is an immortalalien.
Rose thinks Clive is delusional. She returns to Mickey's car and tells
him to drive somewhere for lunch, not realizing he has been replaced by
an auton.

At the restaurant, "Mickey" wants to know more about the Doctor. The
auton isn't quite perfect, and stutters, but she does not want to
discuss the Doctor, saying she thinks he is dangerous. A waiter offers
Mickey and Rose champagne.
"Mickey" says they did not order any — then looks up and sees the
waiter is the Doctor. The Doctor pops the cork on the bottle, sending
it flying into "Mickey"'s head, which absorbs it, then spits it out.
"Mickey" morphs his hand into a heavy spade-shape, slicing the table in
half. The Doctor gets "Mickey" in a choke hold and manages to pull his
head off. The headless auton rampages through the restaurant. Rose
tells the other patrons to run, then follows the Doctor, who is holding
onto the head.

Reaching the yard, the Doctor seals the door behind them with the
sonic screwdriver, but the auton is soon pummeling it with inhuman
force. The Doctor suggests they go into the police box standing there.
Rose incredulously follows him in, but stops short as she sees the
interior. She runs around the box, assuring herself of its ordinary
size before going in again just as the auton breaks through.

Inside the much larger interior of the ship, the Doctor assures Rose
that nothing can get through the doors. He attaches the plastic head to
the console, telling Rose that the head can be used to trace the signal
back to the source. Rose asks if the ship and the Doctor are alien and
he answers yes to both questions. The ship is his TARDIS
— Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Rose chokes back a sob, and
asks if "they" have killed Mickey. The Doctor is taken aback as he had
not considered this, and Rose is shocked he has not. "Mickey"'s head
starts to melt, and the Doctor frantically runs to the console, trying
to lock on to the signal before it fades. The TARDIS starts up, and
then stops.

The Doctor rushes through the doors, with Rose shouting that it is
not safe. When she follows him, however, they are not in the yard
anymore but on the banks of the River Thames.
The Doctor says the TARDIS is able to disappear and reappear in a
different place. He is angry because he has lost the signal. Rose is
worried about the automaton, but the Doctor says it would have melted
along with the head. Rose mutters that she is going to have to tell
Mickey's mother that he is dead, and when the Doctor asks who, Rose
realizes the Doctor has forgotten Mickey again. They have a
confrontation about his lack of empathy, the Doctor shouting that he is
more concerned about saving the life of "every stupid ape blundering
about on top of this planet." Rose asks if the Doctor's an alien, why
he sounds like he's from the North. The Doctor retorts that lots of
planets have a North. This seems to defuse the tension.

Rose stares at the exterior of the TARDIS and asks what a police
public call box is. The Doctor, cheerful again, explains that it is a
disguise, a telephone box for the police from the 1950s.
Rose, curious again, asks what the living plastic creatures have
against the Earth. The Doctor replies that they love the Earth because
it has plenty of pollutants. The Nestene Consciousness
— the intelligence animating the plastic — lost its food supply during
a war, when all its protein planets rotted. Earth is dinner. Rose asks
if there is any way to stop it, and the Doctor produces a clear
cylinder of blue liquid. "Anti-plastic," he announces.

However, the Doctor has to find the Consciousness. He wonders aloud
that the transmitter to control the plastic has to be huge, and round…
Rose indicates behind him, and after a few puzzled glances over his
shoulder the Doctor notices the London Eye.
Hand in hand, they run across the bridge to it. Rose spots a hatchway
that leads below the Eye, and they both go below to find a giant vat of
pulsing, molten plastic — the Nestene Consciousness. The Doctor wants
to give it a chance and applies for an audience, citing Convention 15
of the Shadow Proclamation. The vat roars its assent in an
unintelligible alien language. Rose spots the real Mickey, sitting
terrified on one of the walkways. The Nestenes kept him alive to
maintain the replica.

The Doctor tells the Consciousness to leave Earth, brushing aside its claims of constitutional
rights and characterizing its actions as an invasion. The Doctor pleads
on humanity's behalf — they are primitive, but capable of much more.
However, two autons grab hold of the Doctor, one removing the container
of anti-plastic from his jacket.

The Doctor protests that the vial was just insurance and he is not
their enemy. The Consciousness responds by unveiling the TARDIS, and
makes an accusatory howl. The Doctor admits that it is his ship, but
says that it was not his fault — he fought in the war,
but he could not save the Nestenes' world. The Consciousness does not
believe the Doctor and goes to the final phase of the invasion. Bolts
of electricity stab up across the London Eye as it pulses a signal
across London. Rose tries to warn her mother on her mobile phone, but
the call breaks up and Jackie, who is about to enter a shopping centre
called the Queen's Arcade, cuts it off.

Clive and his family are also at the arcade when the shop dummies
come to life, crashing through the windows. Clive realizes that all the
stories he has read are true, just as a mannequin's hand flips open,
revealing a weapon. He looks on sadly as the auton shoots him
point-blank. People scream as the automatons start killing everyone in
sight. Beneath the Eye, the stairs back up to the surface collapse.
Rose and Mickey rush to the TARDIS, but the door is locked. As she and
the Doctor lock eyes helplessly, outside in the streets the massacre
continues. Jackie is trapped by a group of mannequins in wedding dresses, who prepare to shoot her.

Mickey tells Rose to abandon the Doctor, but Rose rushes up a flight of stairs to a chain on the wall. She may have no A-levels, no job and no future, but she has a bronze medal in under-sevens gymnastics. She frees the chain with a blow from a fire axe,
and swings across to knock the auton holding the anti-plastic over the
railing. While the Doctor flips the one holding him over as well, the
anti-plastic falls into the vat, causing the Consciousness to writhe in
pain. The Eye stops transmitting, and the autons across London jerk
spastically and drop, including the ones menacing Jackie, leaving the
streets scattered with debris and the dead. The Nestenes' vat explodes
as Rose, Mickey and the Doctor enter the TARDIS and it dematerialises.

The TARDIS rematerialises on a side street, Mickey stumbling out,
still terrified. Rose calls up her mother on her mobile phone and
smiles in relief as she hears Jackie's voice. Rose hangs up without
saying anything, and tells the Doctor that he would have been dead if
not for her. The Doctor smiles from the TARDIS doorway in agreement and
thanks her. He then offers to take her with him to see the universe —
Mickey is not invited. Rose asks if it will always be this dangerous,
and the Doctor gleefully answers yes. Rose hesitates but declines,
saying that she has to find her mother and look after Mickey. The
Doctor nods, disappointed and closes the door. The TARDIS
dematerialises with a rush of wind filling the empty space where it was.

As Mickey and Rose turn to leave, the TARDIS appears again. The
Doctor pops his head out and asks Rose if he had mentioned that the
TARDIS also travels in time. Rose smiles, turning to Mickey to kiss him
goodbye, then runs happily into the TARDIS.